


Death and Taxes

by PoorUnfortunateSoul



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Elf Romelle, Established Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Established Relationship, Established Romelle/Allura, F/F, Gardener Lance, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Hunk/Lance (Voltron), Protective Lance (Voltron), Temporary Character Death, Witch AU, Witch Hunters, Witch Keith (Voltron), Witch Lance (Voltron), Witch/Human, elf allura, elf coran, he lives don't worry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-08-10 23:30:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16464404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoorUnfortunateSoul/pseuds/PoorUnfortunateSoul
Summary: Keith hates Halloween. All the witch hunters, real and fake, come out around this time of year, and creatures like Keith and his roommate, Lance, have to stay carefully hidden. Despite their best efforts, Keith is caught in their garden.He's 100% certain that the hunter slew him, so why the FUCK is he alive right now?_____Or, a witch hunter kills Keith, and he's mysteriously resurrected. There's no signs of black magic being used for necromancy, so he sets out to found out how and why he survived. Meanwhile, the witch hunter is still out there, searching for Keith and Lance, vampires have started sprouting up by his new, human, boyfriend's apartment, and the hunter completely destroyed the garden Keith and Lance used to use to utilize most of their spells. Halloween sucks.





	1. Chapter 1

**Part One: The Resurrection**  

 

 

Lance told him it was a bad idea. The witch hunter had practically been on their doorstep last night, but animals near his boyfriend’s new apartment have been drained of blood. Lance, always the voice of reason, thinks that it’s not enough evidence that vampires are lurking around, but Keith isn’t taking any chances. 

Shiro isn’t weak by any means. When it comes to human partners, Keith couldn’t’ve picked someone physically stronger. Keith has no doubt that he’d be able to handle himself if he was faced with an elf or a physic, but vampires are on a whole other plane of existence.

Keith is mindful to avoid bloodsuckers. While he could, in theory, handle them, they’re still the closest thing to dangerous for a well-practiced witch. Witch’s, by nature, are incredibly susceptible to manipulation magic, which vampires excel at. They can only control over one person, but the thought of literally handing his life over to a bloodsucker until Lance or Allura comes to save him makes his skin crawl.

He’d hardly let Shiro succumb to the to that fate. Maybe he’s overreacting - one vampire is hardly a problem. If it had been a whole hoard of them, more than a few wildlife would be drained by now.

Still, if one is around, they could be stalking out a new coven. It’s October after all. All the hunters - real and fake - come out at this time of year. 

Everyone is migrating. Lance saw a band of elves creating a new mirage in town last week. Hell, even they’ve considered moving if the witch hunter persists in staying around. 

If he’s being honest, Keith couldn’t care less if the bloodsuckers find a safe place to stay during hunting season. He will  _ not  _ let his new boyfriend become a snack.

He bought a Halloween wreath for Shiro to put up on his front door. Shiro loves Halloween, so Keith isn’t fearful that he won’t hang it. All he needs to do is charm some garlic and find a hiding spell in his spellbook. Keith likes to think that he can talk his way through a lot of situations, but convincing his boyfriend to hang garlic for Halloween might be too hard for even him. 

Lance planted garlic a while ago to keep Hunk’s apartment guarded. Sometimes, having a itch who specializes in ward protection and growth is helpful. Keith probably could’ve conjured something powerful enough up, but not as strong as Lance’s. 

Keith is a powerful witch. He doesn’t say it to brag, he says it because it’s true. Most witches tend to travel and live in packs, because everyone specializes in something. Like Lance, there are witches who specializes in protection. They’ll exceed in keeping the coven safe, and they’re usually the most important person in their coven. However, that’s  _ all _ they’ll be good at. 

They can’t handle fire or water magic, and they can’t fight on their own should the occasion arise. Most witches have one speciality. A master of one, and jack of nothing. Keith doesn’t specialize in anything. He’s a jack of all trades, and master of none. 

He doesn’t excel at anything, but is passable in every type of magic. Witches like Keith are incredibly rare. He’s the first one in centuries, and while it sounds magical and like he’s something special, it really works more like a curse. 

Witches like Keith are dangerous. They have a tendency to turn to black magic, the most powerful but risky magic there is. Keith has never considered it, but it’s suspected that he will. Every witch like Keith in history has died trying to pursue immortality. They’re all a victim of their own ego, and talent. A ticking time bomb is the best comparison Keith can make. 

Keith can’t join a coven. He’s not welcome in normal witch spaces. Not legally - legally, Keith can go where he pleases. But, why would he stay where he doesn’t feel welcome? That’s why he’s incredibly grateful to have Lance around. Not only does he not believe Keith to be dangerous, but realistically Lance could join the biggest and strongest coven around if he wanted to. His protection magic is  _ that  _ strong. 

Instead, he stays with Keith. Since Keith seems to be in the mood to be honest, he’ll admit that he feels fine walking to Lance’s enchanted garden in the woods to find garlic with a witch hunter around just because it was Lance who warded it. 

Keith knows that he’s found Lance’s garden when there’s a drastic shift in temperature. Lance’s speciality in growth lets him grow his garden all year round, even when certain things aren’t in season. He creates some sort of super greenhouse - Keith will admit that he didn’t really pay attention when he explained it to him - that keeps each item in their prefered environment to grow and bloom. 

Thanks to that, there’s a small patch in the woods behind their house with extremely different temperatures in different places. Keith places the basket he’d grabbed from the kitchen on the ground next to him. He closes his eyes and faces his palms forward. 

Magic feels different for everyone. For Lance, he says it feels like a cool wave washes over him. For Keith, it’s redhot. It’s like his blood boils, and it runs along his veins until it settles on his palms. It used to hurt, to gather the energy to perform a spell, when he was a kid. Now, the warmth is a familiar, comfortable feeling; it makes him calm.

Lance picked the area with the strongest ley lines in town, so the energy comes easily. Keith hums at the familiar thrum of power. He mutters the spell Lance taught him under his breath, and forces the power outwards. The air around him crackles for a second before settling again. 

Keith drops his arms and opens his eyes. The protection ward Lance put on the garden lowers. The dead looking autumn trees give way to life as the well placed illusion fades. Beautiful flowers and produce spread out in front of Keith, and he takes a deep breath of the Earthy air. He swears the garden sparkles before him. It truly is a product of Lance’s overbearing love. 

Keith makes his way through the garden, being careful not to disturb anything. His mouth waters when he passes over the tomatoes. He makes a mental note to tell Lance that they’re ready. 

Eventually, he makes it to the garlic. He bends down and starts shifting through them to find a good one. Keith picks a few of the biggest and healthiest ones, and is standing when the garden shuts in on itself.    

   Keith gasps in surprise as the ground under him shifts. He crouches to keep himself balanced, and tries to gather power in his palms. He yelps and falls backwards on his butt when the energy does nothing but shock his palms. 

Keith’s eyes widen at the Ley Lines response. 

_ Lance is going to kill me if he doesn’t _ , is all he can think before everything goes black.

 

________

The first sensation Keith registers when he wakes up is that he’s freezing. A forbidding chill runs down his spine, and he realizes that he’s completely naked. If that wasn’t alarming enough, he’s also quick to understand that he can’t move. 

He doesn’t feel strapped down, but his body refuses to respond. It’s like his muscles are locked in place, and there’s nothing he can do about it. His heart pounds in his chest, and breathing is labored. Keith can’t hear anything, and he’s scared that if he opens his eyes, he won’t be able to see either. 

He focuses on taking in air. The lungs in his chest drink it in greedily, like parched man in the desert. He feels like he’s run a marathon, but Keith is sure that he’s lying down. 

Feeling returns in his toes, and he wiggles them. Tiny pin-pricks, almost like needles, envelop his feet.    

_ That’s good,  _ he thinks.  _ That means I’m getting my feeling back.  _

There’s a sudden buzzing overhead, and Keith opens his eyes. Like he’d feared, he can’t see anything. It’s not because of the dark, there’s no lingering edges that indicate that his eyes are open. He tries not to panic more than he already is. 

The buzzing turns to ringing, and then his hearing is clear. Keith sighs shakily, and forces his knee to bend. It hits another cold surface, and it’s so relieving when it actually hurts that he could almost cry. 

Colorful spots blink in and out of his vision as he focuses on moving his arm. He bends his left arm, and then his right. Cradling them to his chest, he rubs at his eyelids. When he pulls his hand back, he can see the vague outline of it in front of his face. 

“Thank God,” he says, a bit shakily.

Keith drops the hand down, and rolls around onto his stomach. There’s a door in front of him, keeping him trapped in this tiny place. Now that he’s able to realize how tiny the compartment he’s in is - his whole body barely fits - he’s starting to feel claustrophobic. He knows he can’t be reckless here, though. 

Keith closes his eyes, and pushes his energy outwards. The ley lines under ground practically sing in his ears, so whoever put him here is either trying to bait out his magic or they’re quite certain that he’s dead. 

He opens his eyes again, and feels around the walls. They’re a cool metal, and quite neat; dust free even, so he’s surprised to feel a cobweb to his left. He sends a quick thank you to whichever God or Goddess is looking over him, and tries not think about what he’s doing as he plucks a dead fly from the web. 

Keith pulls the energy from underground again, and sighs when a rush of warmth floods over him. It’s a stark contrast to the cool metal box he’s in, but it’s welcomed greatly. 

“ _ Body rise, take to the skies, and be my eyes _ ,” Keith whispers, before blowing on the bug. 

Keith opens his eyes, and finds himself staring back at him. He shutters internally. He  _ hates _ seeing through other things peoples eyes, but this is the only thing he can think. 

The dead fly is lively now, and Keith follows it as it wiggles it’s way through the box. It flies around the room, and it gives Keith the confirmation he needed to know that his attacker thinks he’s dead, because he’s  _ definitely _ in a morgue right now.

There’s a few bodies in the room, laid out on tables. None of the bodies in the room are alive, and it appears to be dark out. The mortician must have went home. 

He releases his hold on the fly, and gets dizzy when he’s suddenly staring at the inside of his compartment again. Keith  _ really _ hates that spell. 

He puts his feet against the wall at the other end, and uses it to help him push open his compartment. The door gives easily, and Keith blinks at the sudden flood of moonlight. He pushes the sheet off of himself, and shivers at the cold. 

“ _ Naked as the day I was born, give me the clothes I should’ve worn _ ,” Keith mutters, and his clothes materialize on his body. 

_ Never thought I’d have to use that one,  _ he muses. 

He glances at the fly, lifeless again on the floor. 

Crouching down, he says, “Thanks for your help, little guy.”

He slips it in his pocket, making a mental note to give it to Pidge later. She loves researching the after effects necromancy has on living things. 

Keith stands again, and puts his campartment away. He snags his tag, and stands in the strip of moonlight to look it over. 

_ Name: Keith Kogane _

_ Cause of Death: Stabbed through the chest. Pierced the heart. Died instantly.  _

_ Stabbed? _ Keith thinks, pulling his shirt down. There’s nothing but a scar over his heart. 

His first thought is  _ what the fuck? _ because corpses do  _ not  _ heal, and his second one is  _ does Lance know? _

Oh, shit.   _ Lance _ .

Keith hurries out of the morgue, the image of Lance’s beloved garden crumbing in on itself searing itself onto the inside of his eyelids. 

 

\----------- 

Keith hesitantly creeps into the apartment he and Lance share. He has no idea what Lance’s reaction to seeing him will be, so he tries to ready himself for anything. 

“Keith?” Lance calls.

“Yeah?” he says, freezing in the kitchen. 

Lance comes out of his bedroom, with a bubble face mask on. He's got his usual PJs on - a pair of sweatpants that probably initially belonged to Keith, and a shirt that completely engulfs him, that probably belongs to Hunk. Keith swears that a good three fourths of Lance’s wardrobe isn’t even  _ his. _

“Did you see what happened to my garden?” he asks, voice giving away his distress. Keith shakes his head. “I think the witch hunter got to it. It completely folded in on itself. I managed to salvage some of the produce with a temporary spell that Pidge taught me, but it’s not my area of expertise, so it’s pretty weak.” 

Keith removes his shoes and tosses them next to the door with the others while Lance was speaking. 

“What happened to your protective wards?” Keith asks.

It’s something that’s been burning in the back of his mind since waking up in the morgue. Lance loves that garden like a mother loves her child - it’s probably the most warded place in the entire city. 

“Someone broke them,” Lance says, biting his lip worriedly. “I don’t think the hunter is a normal hunter. I  _ really _ think we should move.” 

White hot panic floods Keith’s systems. Someone  _ broke _ Lance’s wards? Even  _ Keith _ would have a hard time breaking them. 

“I think,” Keith says, slowly, “that we’re fine.”

Lance scrunches his eyebrows.  
“Why?”

“Just a feeling I have,” Keith says, shrugging his shoulders. 

Witch’s intuition is key to a witch’s survival, and it’s usually never wrong. Especially Keith’s; he’s used his witch’s intuition to get himself out of a lot of trouble when he was in high school. Their headmaster hated Keith by the time they graduated, because he could never get a solid reason to expel him. 

Despite how much everyone feared Keith and his power, they feared the dangers lurking outside of the school more. Losing Keith, their strongest fighter and predicter,  and, in turn, their strongest protector, Lance, wasn’t a risk they were willing to take. No matter how many fights he got into with James fucking Griffith, they’d never expel him. 

“Okay,” Lance says, eventually. “If you think we’re okay, then we’ll stay. Just… ask Allura for some sort of fix-it spell for me, okay?”

Keith nods. Satisfied, Lance goes back to his room. 

Keith immediately sits down on the kitchen floor. Turns out being dead for a few hours takes a lot out of a person. 

In truth, Keith isn’t completely sure that they’re safe. His witch’s intuition has been strangely silent since he woke up, probably incredibly mad at him for going to Lance’s garden earlier despite it warning him not to. However, the witch hunter wasn’t there when he woke up, and there were no traps set for him when he left. 

If the hunter seems pretty confident that Keith is dead, then that must mean that he’s moved on. Keith sighs, and stands back up. His breath smells like death warmed over - pun intended - and he can’t stand it anymore. 

Keith brushes his teeth, and takes a shower to scrub the smell of decay off of his body. He texts Allura to make an appointment with Coran tomorrow, and asks about Lance’s fix-it spell. 

Keith curls up in bed, and looks at the picture of him as a kid, on his father’s shoulders. His lips quirk up in a tiny smile. 

“Watch over me tonight,” he prays softly, before snapping out the light.


	2. Living, Breathing, Being

The first thing Keith does the next day, is head off into the woods on the other side of town. A small clan of elves that consists of three members have lived in the same hidden mansion for centuries. Lance struck a treaty with them a few years back, in return for his protection wards.

Elves are incredibly good hunters. You name it, they can get it. It’s made them a sort of prey for witches. Many of them have been captured and forced to hunt for items for their spells.

It’s legal in the otherverse. Keith remembers learning about the Elf keeping laws, directly after a class where a professor had scoffed at human slavery and bragged about supernaturals being much more humane. He’s pretty sure the irony was lost on anyone who wasn’t a blender - someone who possesses magical powers but looks human passing, like witch’s, vampires and werewolves on certain days of the moon’s cycle, and passes between both worlds with ease.

On paper, Lance and Keith own the Altean clan. They had to be put down in their name to keep other witch’s away, but Lance and Keith never act as their masters. They’re free to do whatever they want, and have even turned down their requests before.

Lance once poison ivy when Allura refused to go find a similar looking flower for a spell to protect his work place when werewolves started popping up near there. They’d fought over whose ears were uglier, and, honestly, Lance is lucky that all Allura did was laugh before handing him a potion to cure it that Coran gave her.

Coran, the advisor for the elf princess Allura, is a highly thought of doctor in town. He seems to cure the incurable, like leukemia in kids and other types of cancers. He used to cure polio and the plague when they first settled here, and yet, somehow, he was never accused of being a witch.

He checks Keith and Lance out for free, thanks to Lance’s treaty. It’s a hell of a lot easier to go see someone who knows about magic and not have to lie to them. He cured Lance of his lovebug problem a few months ago, after Lance blurted out his three year crush on Hunk out of the blue.

Keith shivers as he remembers. That lovebug might have finally gotten his best friend the love of his life, but it also made Lance…. Clingy. Lance is clingy by himself. Lance on a _lovebug_ , is a permit hug situation that Keith couldn’t escape.

He might have to lie to Coran about this, though. The Alteans don’t know much about witches, but they know enough to know that Keith touching black magic is dangerous. If so much as mentions being dead, they’d instantly suspect necromancy and then they’d call Lance, and he’d _kill Keith again_.

So, lips sealed is the idea. Keith reminds himself of that, and rings the doorbell.

Keith knows he’s on the shorter side - Lance would make a comment about it every chance he got when they were in high school, just to rile Keith up. He never really _feels_ short though, since everyone around him is only slightly taller than him. He feels it standing in front of the Altean’s mansion, but he thinks that anyone would.

It’s _four stories_ , for _three_ of them. They all have their own floor, and one that they share. Well, technically.

The front door flings open, and Keith stops his awkward shuffling. Allura stands in the doorway, in all of her sparkling princess glory. Her long, curly white hair is pulled back into a ponytail, pointy ears on display. Coran’s always telling her that she’s too careless with putting them on display, but she never listens.

“Keith!” Allura exclaims, blue eyes sparkling.

He can barely manage a wave, before she’s throwing herself into his arms, and squeezing him tightly.

“Hey, princess,” Keith says, amused. “Missed you too.”

He gives Allura a quick squeeze around her thin waist, and then they pull a part.

“You’re here to see Coran?” she asks, looking him over with a frown. “You do look a bit pale.”

She presses her hand to his forehead, and Keith let’s her. If he pushes away, she’ll chase after. He knows better than to run from Allura’s kindness.

“You don’t feel warm,” Allura murmurs to herself. “Oh, well. Come on in. Coran’s on the third floor with Romelle. I have to go finish a meeting with some ogres, but you can go on without me.”

Keith nods. He follows her inside, and she closes the door behind them.

“You’re still having trouble with the ogres?” Keith asks, and Allura pinches the bridge of her nose.

“They’ve been digging up patients from Coran’s hospital. I suppose that it’s better than _live_ humans, but if they keep being careless like this, they’re going to get caught. The human police have already started looking for a graverobber.”

Keith winces. It’s never good when the human police get involved, because then the otherverse police get involved, and then things get… complicated, would be the word Keith would use.

“Yikes,” he says, and Allura nods. “Better than the time they were convinced they could go vegetarian, I guess.”

Allura groans.  
“I have _no_ idea who made them think it was a good one.”

“I think it was Lance,” Keith says, because he knows it was.

He remembers being slightly offended when Coran had suggested that it was something that Keith might do, but Lance had ought to know better. Honestly, Keith has no idea why he comes across as someone stupid enough to accidentally cause trouble. Every time he has, it’s been on purpose. Lance does it by running his mouth without thinking.

Allura shakes her head, and any answer she might’ve had is cut off by her cell phone ringing. She gives Keith an apologetic smile, and answers it. She walks away, speaking the angry sounding language the ogres speak. Keith can’t tell if she sounds angry because she _is_ , or if that’s just because of the way the language sounds. Maybe it’s both.

Keith begins his way up to the spiral staircase. The floors are made of marble, and they’ve laid a red carpet over it. He always feels like a celebrity walking up it.

Coran and Romelle are on the third floor just like Allura told him they’d be.

They’re both hunched over some sort of potion that Keith assumes Coran made. Keith knocks against the doorframe lightly, and they both look over.

Romelle’s face lights up just like Allura’s did, and Coran gives him easy smile.

“Long time no see,” Romelle accuses, coming over to greet him with a kiss on the cheek.

Keith smiles and resists the urge to wipe her sticky lip gloss off of his cheek. He’s made that mistake before, and every time she somehow managed to find something stickier. It’s a game they play silently, never addressing it, but always trying to one up each other.

“Sorry,” Keith apologizes, “there’s been a few distracting circumstances.”

His face must be grim, because Romelle scrunches her eyebrows, and Coran’s easy smile slides from his face.

“Distracting circumstances?” she asks, and Keith nods.

“Yeah. Maybe I can tell you while Coran looks me over?” he offers, and Coran pats his examination table.

Keith walks over to it, and hops up on the table. Romelle takes Keith’s jacket from him after he shrugs it off, and he thanks her softly.

“What are you here for exactly?” Coran asks, snapping his gloves on. “You didn’t get bit by Lance’s lovebud, did you?”

“I made him get rid of it,” Keith says, much to Coran’s dismay.

Coran loved Lance’s idea of becoming a world renowned matchmaker with it. Keith had to take the rule as everyone’s morals, _again_ , and shut that idea down before it started.

“Smart,” Romelle murmurs, quiet so only Keith can hear it.

She rakes her long blonde hair back, careful to leave enough out so that it doesn't show off her ears even though it’s just Keith. Romelle has always been much more careful than her girlfriend, though Keith supposes she has to be. While Allura is content to sit in their mansion and manage a few otherverse clans so they don’t give themselves away, Romelle wants to practice potion making at Coran’s hospital.  

“Just a general check up, is fine,” Keith says, “I just haven’t had a physical in a while, and figured I should.”

“A physical,” Romelle blanches. “I was hoping for something fun.”

Keith snorts, and instantly regrets it. The harsh lights in Coran’s exam room, mixed with the blinding white floors and walls, never fail to give Keith a headache.

“You were the one that was glad it wasn’t another lovebug bite,” Keith points out, and Romelle tsks quietly.

Coran silently begins his work, gesturing for Keith’s arm. He gives it to him, and Coran begins checking his blood pressure.

“We didn’t need more Lance level self-loathing,” Romelle says, and Keith agrees. “But I’ve seen _billions_ of physicals. Forgive me for hoping a witch had more to offer.”  

Keith doesn’t doubt her. Romelle is reaching 2,000 years old, the age that elves consider to be the beginnings of adulthood. As a species with a lifespan that averages 250 years, Keith can’t fathom that amount of time.

“Still, this isn’t like you,” Coran chimes in, “You usually ignore my requests for your yearly. I even gave up asking! What made you finally cave?”

“Was it his incessant nagging?” Romelle asks, giving Coran a knowing look.

The man is persistent. He filled Keith’s voicemail _twice_ when he missed a physical for the first time.

“No, uh. My new boyfriend is a bit of a health nut. Lost his mind when I said I hadn’t seen a doctor for three years.”

It’s not _entirely_ a lie. Shiro is in school to be a doctor, works out twice a week, and eats better than any other college kid Keith knows. He didn’t flip when he Keith told him, rather he offered to do it himself. His boyfriend is incredibly hot. Keith was tempted. Sue him.

“Ooh, a new boyfriend,” Romelle says, looking the most interested she has since she first spotted Keith in the doorway. “Is that the new circumstance?”

Keith shakes his head, and lays down on his back when Coran asks him too quietly. He tries not to tense up his muscles as Coran feels around his stomach.

“I _wish_ that was the only distracting circumstance, but no. There’s a vampire hanging around my boyfriend’s new apartment, and a witch hunter was sniffing around Lance’s and I’s the other day.”

“A witch hunter?” Romelle asks, all playfullness gone.

Coran stops his exam, and looks at Keith an equally serious gaze, urging him to go on.

“Yeah,” Keith confirms, “He tracked me down at Lance’s garden. He never caught me because my Witch’s Intuition warned me he was there, but he completely wrecked Lance’s garden. He wanted me to ask if you had some sort of restoration spell.”

“Nothing made, but I might have the ingredients,” Coran says, jerking his head towards Romelle.

She nods and turns towards his cabinets, and begins ruffling through them.

“How would someone even _find_ Lance’s garden, let alone _destroy_ it?” Romelle asks, “It’s the most well protected place in the state. Probably even the world!”

Keith shrugs, and Coran helps him get back into a sitting position.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Keith murmurs, and Romelle turns around with the ingredients in her hands.

 She remains silent, and thoughtful throughout the rest of his examination. Coran’s usual happy-go-lucky aura is tainted as well, and he tries not to let Keith see how grim he looks, but he sees it anyways.

He dubs Keith as having a cleaning bill of health, and Keith breathes a sigh of relief. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it’s nice to know that he’s not rotting from the inside out or something.

Romelle slips the ingredients into Keith’s jacket, and gives him a hug before he leaves.

“I’ll keep my eyes and ears open,” Romelle promises him, eyes earnest. “Anything I can think of that will protect you, I’ll let you know.”

Keith nods, and gives her another quick squeeze before he goes. Coran gives him a pat on the back, and promises the same as Romelle.

Keith hopes he hasn’t scared them. Where there’s a witch hunter, there’s usually a vampire one behind him, a werewolf hunter behind the vampire hunter, and an elf hunter behind the vampire hunter. They often travel in packs, and exchange information.

He hate to admit it, but something feels _different_ about this one. Something more dangerous. They’ve dealt with many hunters in the past, but none of them have been able to touch Lance’s garden. They seem much more knowledgeable than any other hunter they’ve come across, and Keith has been trying not to think about what that means.

He catches Allura in the living room as he leaves, still speaking angrily. He gives her a quick wave before he slips his shoes on and slips out.

The day is still new, and Keith makes a plan for it as he walks back into the woods.

  
  


          ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Keith grabs a can of the mocha coffee from the library’s vending machine and sets out to find a spellbook. With everything that’s happened, he’d nearly forgotten about warding Shiro’s door with a protection charm. Thanks to Lance’s garden getting destroyed, he has to find an alternative to the charmed garlic, or a spell that’ll let him fix the destroyed one he found.

He approaches the librarian, and she regards him wearily.

“Key to the witch’s hole, please,” he says, extending his hand.

She eyes him for a bit before grabbing the key from her desk.

“Go near the black magic section, and I will not hesitate to call you in. Do you understand me?” she threatens, hand hovering over Keith’s open palm.

“Got it,” Keith says, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

He’s come to this library hundreds of times before, and she always gives the same threat. Even if Keith doesn’t enter the witch’s hole at all. He is a college student, after all, and this _is_ a library. It sort of becomes his second home during finals week.

She lets go of her hold on the keys, and Keith thanks her with nod. He goes back into the dark section of the otherwise brightly lit library, and looks around to make sure no one else sees him. When he’s sure the coast is clear, Keith puts the key in and twists the lock.

He remembers his and Lance’s disappointment when they first entered the witch’s hole. It was talked up in the otherverse as this big, magical place with access to infinite witch knowledge. Including knowledge they weren’t allowed to have as students.

In reality, it’s just a small room lined with books. He honestly doesn’t know what he was expecting. Keith drops his book bag on the floor, and channels the ley line energy from under the library to his palms.

It’s old and often used magic, and it reacts almost instantly.

“ _With all of these things in front of me, bring the one that will bring me the most glee.”_

Keith barely has enough time to react to keep a book from launching itself into his stomach. He sends a silent thank you to his mother for his quick reflexes, and inspects the cover.

 _Protection for Beginners._ Keith is hardly a _beginner_ when it comes to practicing protection magic, but when it comes to remembering the spells… He’s a bit embarrassed to say that it’s closer to his level.

Keith looks up, and there’s another book that’s peeking out from the shelf. Intrigued, he carefully holds the other book to his chest, and pulls the other out from it’s spot.

“Necromancy and the Dead,” Keith murmurs, looking over the cover.

The yellowing pages suggest that it’s old, but it doesn’t look well-loved. The energy it gives off is the exact opposite of the other book. That one jumped at the chance for Keith’s attention, and this one feels like it’s trying to make Keith beg for it to validate him.

Keith pushes his magic out to check for hidden cameras, and shoves the book into his book bag when it comes up empty. He knows better than to question old books that know Keith needs them.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, it's been a while. Sorry about that - I signed up for a sheith & a klance secret santa exchange, and a sheith prompt bang & they've been taking up most of my time. 
> 
> My [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/festive-keith) :) Come say hi!!
> 
> Or [twitter](https://twitter.com/LittleLoser987) since Tumblr is purging itself.


End file.
